Posted on www.csg.co.uk/blog on February 17th 2017

http://www.csg.co.uk/blog/creature-comfort/ 

‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good’, as the old saying goes but in the world of recycling, such a sentiment is little short of a mindset. Any form of consumption or manufacture that produces a by-product or other waste is simply an opportunity to provide a benefit elsewhere. If it can’t do that, then it truly is an ‘ill wind’.

So it is the case with JeeGee bedding, made by J&G Environmental, a member of the CSG family of companies. For eight years, it has successfully turned waste cardboard into an effective bedding for stabled animals, mainly horses. Highly absorbent and producing very little dust, as any horse owner will tell you, makes it an ideal bedding substance for any equine.

In recent months, J&G Environmental has agreed a contract with a manufacturer of egg trays to make an even softer, almost dust-free variant of JeeGee bedding from their rejected, unused egg trays. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of shredded egg trays to make up a 20kg bale of JeeGee bedding but they’re made in such vast quantities that even a tiny proportion of rejected trays soon requires that they’re put to some use. To the manufacturer, even their rejected goods can still have a value and to J&G, it’s an exclusive source of materials that are perfectly suited to the purpose.

Of course, horses are well used to sleeping in the recycled waste goods from human civilisation. For as long as recorded time can tell, straw, that well-known by-product of harvested grain, has provided warmth, comfort and sewage absorption to domesticated horses all over the world. Being a biodegradable product itself, it then goes on to fulfil a third role after its use on a stable floor as a base for plant fertiliser. It’s a ‘circle of life’ thing, you might say. The only downside to this centuries-old arrangement is that straw can be quite dusty and for some horses, this can be a problem.

In more recent times, many horse owners have preferred another by-product, wood shavings and sawdust, to do this job. Generally more absorbent than straw and usually producing less dust, shavings offer a more effective option, even if they tend to command a higher price.

Compared to these more traditional alternatives, JeeGee bedding continues the evolution, being described as even more absorbent and almost dust-free. One customer even remarked that her pony, who suffers from laminitis (a condition in which an inability to tolerate carbohydrates and sugars can result in severe foot soreness), found the softer surface much more comfortable to stand on. Another advantage over straw and shavings is that it’s much less likely to stick to your clothes when you spread it around the stable. When you have to do this several times a week, such a minor thing can become a real annoyance!

Bagged at J&G’s site in Blandford, Dorset, JeeGee bedding is sold locally in the area via JeeGee’s Facebook page. As the previous level of cardboard recycling did not require the products to be sold any further afield, there hasn’t been any wider distribution than that. With the success of the egg tray product, it’s likely that that may have to change. J&G will be happy to provide a quote to deliver any quantity of either bedding to any address – obviously the further away from Dorset, the more expensive it’s likely to be.

To coin a new saying, ‘you can’t make top quality horse bedding without breaking up a few egg trays’…